IN THE WATER

MAY ??

Maggie Flynn will present In The Water, a work-in-progress that connects the dots from the lands and communities where resource extraction takes place, to the profits gained by oil, gas, or mining companies, their personnel, and then on to the boards and sponsors of arts and culture organizations. This work makes visible the extensive involvement by extractive industries in governance and funding structures in arts institutions throughout Canada. The question that emerges is: What influence might companies and their well-positioned personnel have on which projects get funded, produced, or presented?

In doing this research, Flynn has encountered both support and resistance. Often both impulses exist in conflict behind the closed doors of major institutions. Precarity and paradoxes in non-profit organizations create fear and defensiveness, especially when calling into question sources of funding. How can we take up these emotions collectively to have critical conversations that invite sector-wide participation? How might collaboration and transparency across institutions change the sponsorship game to shift the current power dynamics?